Note (again): the following is posted to encourage mature thinking, not necessarily because JMM/RCC agrees with it.

Shalom!

Rowland Croucher

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THE DESIRE TO LOVE AND THE REAL GOOD MARRIAGE

It is helpful to remember that a number of courts sanctioning same-sex marriage (starting with the Ontario Court of Appeal) have adopted a natural law framework in doing so.

1. The basic moral obligation is that citizens “ought to seek what is really good” for them. This is a self-evident truth. What is really good is what fulfills a natural human desire or need, because there are no wrong needs. What distinguishes a natural human need from acquired wants is universality, irresistibility and eradicability.

2. The desire to love and be loved is an essential human need, because it is universable, irresistable and eradicable. It is universal in the sense all human beings have it at all points in their lives. It is irresistible in the sense that it is constantly demanding fulfillment. It is eradicable in the sense that it may be temporarily denied, but it never goes away. Orientation is merely a strong predisposition as to how that basic aspect of human nature, the desire to love and be loved, is realized. Heterosexual and homosexual orientations are merely secondary modifications of a more basic human need. The desire for heterosexual partners is neither universal, irresistible nor eradicable. The desire for homosexual partners is neither universal, irresistible nor eradicable. The underlying desire to love and be loved however is universal, irresistible and eradicable.

3. Relationships of equality, intimacy, fidelity and commitment are real goods that fulfill the natural human need to love and be loved. Marriage is a socially recognized institution of equality, intimacy, fidelity and commitment. The primary purpose of marriage is the fostering of that intimacy, not the production of children. It carries with it extensive economic and social rights and responsibilities.

4. The state has an interest in fostering such relationships of equality, intimacy, fidelity and commitment. The dimension of equality precludes the unions of adults and children and precludes the unions of more than two people.

5. The state has no interest in denying persons access to such relationships when they are capable of exercising the equality, fidelity and commitment necessary for such relationships.

6. The state has no interest in forcing any church, synagogue, or mosque to change its beliefs or practices to accommodate the state’s views.

For those interested in supporting or challenging same-sex marriage, those are the moral and legal issues that frame the debate.

Robert Sutherland, Canadian criminal defense lawyer, Senior Fellow at the Mortimer J. Adler Centre for the Study of the Great Ideas and author of Putting God on Trial: The Biblical Book of Job.

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